Merchants are always looking for ways to increase sales and profits. One way this is achieved is by providing attentive and responsive customer service. In the context of a local merchant with primarily local repeat customers, this may be as simple as the merchant saying hello to a customer he recognizes when the customer enters the store. The merchant may ask the customer how his day is going, or ask about an item that was recently purchased from the merchant. Such interactions may help the customer feel like she is a valued customer. Because the local merchant may know preferences of his repeat customers, the merchant may make suggestions for new products or services the customer may be interested in, which in turn could generate additional sales.
In the modern retail environment, it is becoming exceedingly rare for a merchant to have such individualized and personal interactions with his customers. In many cases, a customer may walk into a store for the first time, make a purchase, and never enter the store again. The ability for a merchant to get to know his customers and his customers' purchasing behaviors is made even more difficult when there is no face to face interaction, such as in online transactions. When a merchant has limited to no information about his customers, providing attentive and responsive customer service to make the customer feel valued becomes exceedingly difficult.
On the opposite side of providing better customer service to increase sales is the desire to reduce losses. The local merchant may know from experience that a customer who has just entered his store has a reputation as a shoplifter. The merchant may then put extra effort into monitoring the customer while he is in the store. Just as described above, in a modern retail environment, the merchant would rarely have such individualized and personal knowledge about his customers.
Embodiments of the present invention address these problems and other problems individually and collectively.